


Here Comes Trouble

by orphan_account



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-09
Updated: 2013-09-09
Packaged: 2017-12-26 03:08:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/960877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Davey had always said that Jack had a tendency to get in over his head. But Jack had always just sort of shrugged it off until now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here Comes Trouble

Davey had always said that Jack had a tendency to get in over his head. But Jack had always just sort of shrugged it off until now.

What the hell had he been thinking, signing up for the debate team?!

You weren’t, Jack. You weren’t thinking at all.

He hated when the voice in his head sounded like Davey.

But this new girl, Katherine, was just so different from anyone he’d ever met.

She’d looked like such a goody-two shoes when she’d walked in wearing that polka-dot dress, but then got sent to the office fifteen minutes into first period for arguing with her history teacher.

She actually went to the library for fun, and read books about Manzanar (whatever the hell that was).

She called the yellow-journalism Pulitzer prize guy a dick, and referred to historical figures by their first names.

She’d interrupted biology class to fill in some of the details that the textbook conveniently left out, how it had actually been a woman named Rosalind Franklin that discovered the double helix shape of DNA but Watson and Crick had taken all the credit for it.

She had a tattoo on her right wrist of a quill pen crossing a sword (and one on her back, he would later discover, that said

“who put this brain inside of me?

it cries  
it demands  
it says there is a chance

it will not say  
“no.”)

And dammit, he should’ve known better than to just walk up to her and ask for her number (ESPECIALLY after seeing her make short work of Romeo), but Jack had never been good at thinking things through.

And one would think he’d have given up after that, but _no_. He’d just _had_ to go and follow her to debate team.

When they were paired off, the momentary feeling of victory upon being partnered with Katherine had quickly been replaced by a wave of panic when he realized that if he screwed this up in any way, she would probably tear out his liver.

Censorship? The last time he’d even cast a thought toward censorship was when he and Race had been laughing at how television networks attempted to cover cursing in popular movies. How the hell was he supposed to get up in front of everyone and hold a debate against it?!

However, if there was one thing Jack Kelly was good at, it was bullshitting his way through something. Toss out an idea, and he could spin an entire speech out of it (at least, that had always been his and Davey’s strategy for class presentations). Having Katherine for a partner turned out to be more helpful than deadly, and by the end of it, he was feeling pretty confident about the case they’d just presented.

Katherine rejected the high-five he offered, but the corner of her mouth had quirked up as she admitted, “Not bad.” He took that as a good sign.

Pretty soon, Jack began to find that the more time he spent with Katherine, the less he thought about how hot she was. Instead, he’d find himself admiring how driven she was. Or thinking about how she was really going to be something amazing someday. How lucky he’d feel, when that day came, to be able to say that he’d known her in high school. How he could just sit and listen for hours while she and Davey ranted about the treatment of minorities. How easily she could put to words the things Jack had only ever been able to express through his art.

Jack also found that at some point, when it came to history and current events, he’d gone from “This sounds like something Katherine would be interested in. Maybe I should pay attention.” to actually _caring_ about those things himself. The notes on his detention slips went from “not paying attention in class” and “distracting other students” to “contradicting the teacher” and “causing a fuss in the middle of the lesson”. Jack Kelly’s reputation in the teacher’s lounge upgraded from “slacker” to “watch what you say in front of this one, he will keep you on your toes (and if that unholy trinity of Kelly, Jacobs, and Plumber are ever put in a class together, god save us all).”

And maybe the first thing Jack thought when he saw her was still “Here comes trouble”, but his reaction to said trouble had shifted from “Uh-oh,” to “Watch out, world. We’re coming for you.”


End file.
